It’s the original line-up apparently. I’ll be honest I had to read that twice before I’d believe it after watching the video. The iconic hairstyle is gone, the waistline is gone, the ability to remove sunglasses upon entering a room is gone. The passing years have not been kind. They look older than the Stones and in worse shape. The good news is that the bass player seems happy with the reunion. Lead singer Mike Score has a ‘Brando as Colonel Kurtz’ vibe going on from a good angle; from a bad angle it’s ‘Brando as Dr. Moreau’. If you watch the video on mute and randomly freeze-frame you’d be forgiven for thinking you’re watching a Bad Manners or Black Grape comeback promo. Hey, it could even be a reformed Right Said Fred!
You’re in my heart
I’m going the live music marquee at the Papworth Hospital fete on Saturday. I have gaps between live acts to fill with pre-recorded music.
Would the hive mind of the AfterWord please post your heart-,lung- and tuberculosis-related songs here? I’ll see how many I can squeeze in before someone starts lobbing bottles the sound desk.
Spiritualized are back, Back, BACK!
Oh this is good! The wonderful Spriritualized are back and on a Muscle Shoals trip. It’s not a huge stretch of the imagination to picture Aretha Franklin covering this thing and it bodes really well for the album. The other song on Spotify, Perfect Miracle, is not unlike the song Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space which, again, is no bad thing.
Nice to have you back doing music Mr Spaceman.
Miles – best era?
Like Mick Jagger, there are many Miles Davises, and I wouldn’t profess to know all of them that well. I really like the Coltrane era, and this album, not often mentioned as it’s overshadowed by its kind of blue brother (but a real gem nonetheless), is one of my favourites.
So what’s your favourite Miles? Chasing Bird, with cool elan? Rewriting the rules of jazz with Trane? Getting free with the second quartet? Going all weird with rock dudes? Put on your shades and be cool.
The Church Live In London this weekend
I’m probably the only person on the board that cares, but Australia’s finest are playing as support to the Psychedelic Furs on Friday at the Meltdown thing, then are running a fan weekend at Bush Hall in Shepherd’s Bush on Saturday and Sunday. They are playing The Blurred Crusade and a couple of other albums, plus solo sets etc. Meltdown is sold out, but there may be tickets available for Bush Hall. I’m going. See you there?
https://www.seetickets.com/event/the-church-presents-a-weekend-crusade-/bush-hall/1208947
When The Great Leader met The Great Dealer.
Should we be happy? It seems we should but realistically nothing has been agreed, no deals made on paper anyhow.
Two nutters with the greatest egos the world has ever seen and now you can sleep easy at night. Bollocks!
Maybe when Trump opens the first Condos on Wonsan Beach, maybe…
RIP Jon Hiseman
Have just heard that Jon Hiseman has passed.
Very sad news – a fine drummer and a decent bloke on the occasion I attended a talk he gave.
ATM: Career Therapy
We are clearly the epitome of humankind, with all the wisdom of the ages.
So can I ask for advice or experience?
I’m going through a bit of a mid life career crisis. I work in HR, and have done for 20+ years. It wasn’t my career dream, but something I fell into. Nonetheless, I’m generally good at it, and there are some bits in which I excel.
I work in what is usually called Business Partner roles. The poncy version is that I provide human capital advice to CxOs. The less poncy version, right now, is that I have to help people who are so fucking stupid when it comes to people and processes that most issues are a fight.
I’m not sure I like what I do. I think I like HR, but I’m not wedded to it. I’m pretty sure I’m done working with line clients. I like coaching, and I like employee investigations.
I’m 46. I have son for whom I pay a sizeable chunk of child support. It also seems likely that I’ll have to pay for all his college, and that will be a chunk of change too. All that to say the idea » Continue Reading.
BBC Four Collections – An Iplayer Cornucopia
Possibly old news to you bunch of hipster cutting-edgistas, but the BBC Four bit of the BBC Iplayer is rammed to the gills with Afterword-friendly content
Under BBC Four Collections are hours of documentaries from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s on culture, music and art and that.
Here.
Heads down no nonsense mindless boogie
What does it sound like?:
Well this was an eye opener and no mistake – I remembered Sounds championing the NWOBHM and this never really appealed back then – perhaps time has diminished my antipathy – or perhaps I’m missing my youth (and the hair that I would, no doubt, have shaken !).
My idea of heaven – decent guitar, bass and drums in tune with each other and a singer who can actually sing reasonably sensible lyrics. My idea of hell – instruments all playing over each other, very little tune and a singer who screams muffled screaming vocals.
This compilation has, thankfully, an awful lot more of the former than the latter !
I’d actually heard very few of these bands – heard the names of a lot of them but was only really aware of the better known – Saxon, Samson, Girlschool (and the Girlschool track here included is excellent).
I’d previously assumed that I knew what I was getting when I saw the names Satan, Venom, Savage and Demon Pact on an album cover. In some cases I was dished up roughly what I thought I was going to get but, in the majority » Continue Reading.
How It Happened
Author:Michael Koryta
Judging by the list in the front of this new novel, US author Michael Koryta has written quite a number of books, but this is the first time our paths have crossed. It’s a standalone work, rather than an addition to the couple of series he has also written. I believe some of his work has quite a supernatural element to it, a la John Connolly, but there’s none of that in evidence in this one, which is a conventional mystery tale.
A well known local drug addict and petty thief confesses to a double murder in rural small town America, a drug fuelled hit and run followed by a violent stabbing. The bodies are missing though, and when they do eventually turn up, two hundred miles away, both victims are found to have died from gunshot wounds and are covered in another person’s DNA. The tenacious investigator assigned to the case is determined to ferret out the truth, whatever obstacles are placed in his way – and there are many!
How It Happened is not just the title of this novel but the central tenet of the whole story. The author places you amid a puzzle, challenging » Continue Reading.
KARINE POLWART @ THE STABLES, MILTON KEYNES, SAT JULY 28 – ANYBODY WANT 2 TICKETS?
So I bought tickets ages ago for what promises to be a splendid theatrical show featuring the wonderful Karine Polwart and her beautiful songs.
Inevitably we are now not double- but treble-booked on that night…Stables aren’t interested in swapping the tickets for another night, so I’ve bought 2 more for the Friday night. Have a look at the links and PM me if you’re interested in going on the Saturday. With add-ons tickets are about £30 each. Not looking for face value, but a contribution to the destitute publishers’ whisky fund is always welcome.
John Coltrane – European Tour 1962
What does it sound like?:
I approached this 10-disc box set with some caution – cheapo re-issues being a bit hit and miss, not least as regards information about the recordings. However I need not have worried. While these recordings have been around in some form or another for a while, French label Le Chant Du Monde have done an excellent job of collating and annotating what they say are all the known recordings of the 1962 European tour by Coltrane’s quartet (McCoy Tyner, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass;Elvin Jones, drums; John Coltrane, soprano & tenor sax). They are presented in a (cd-sized) hardback book, with the discs in fan-out paper sleeves and the comprehensive booklet in the middle. Nice.
There are 8 shows (not all complete) and the long tracks means that they aren’t always presented linearly – however all the information is in the sleeve notes.
The sound quality is variable – there are a couple of boxy, splashy gigs in there – but generally very listenable. The odd drop-out and truncated number.
And the music? Feck me, it’s marvellous. The whole quartet get a chance to solo and do so to great effect – and to » Continue Reading.
Janet Henry – ‘Going Home’
What does it sound like?:
Around a hundred years ago (well, 30) I had a garage band. The drummer was a hippyish character who had once played with local guitar legend Ivan Muirhead in his hard-rock gospel act SOS. Ivan’s sister Janet – vocally brilliant and strikingly beautiful, which only added to the awe – sang with SOS; in the early 80s they had released a single on vinyl, no less, and appeared on local TV. Heady stuff in those days. By the late 80s, SOS seemed to have hit an iceberg and sunk without trace. I asked the drummer if he thought Janet might be persuaded to join our band. He passed on a demo tape; she politely passed it back. We got the man who became Duke Special instead, played a bit and then stopped. I never really had it in me to perform on stages, though I couldn’t help writing songs.
Twelve years later, around 1999/2000, I finally got Janet ‘in my band’ in a way, covering a Pentangle song for a Bert Jansch tribute album I was organising. She was effortlessly brilliant. Off the back of that, I was trying to help British 50s/60s rock’n’roll » Continue Reading.
Every Breath You Take remix
Beautiful, I think you’ll agree.
A friend asks Moose…
… if he knew John Foxx was the B52’s drummer?
My friend has “some killer weed”.
Flat Worms at The Garage
Venue:
The Garage, Highbury
Date: 08/06/2018
It’s a while since I’ve seen such an exciting band as Flatworms. There pretty much nothing original about them at all (although I can’t recall seeing a band that that sets the drum kit up in line with the bass and guitar so all members are at the front of the stage) but they combine all their influences and make them their own. I quite liked, during aural onslaught, to spot the people they seem to have nicked stuff from.. Sonic Youth, The Residents, MC5, Buzzcocks, Nirvana… it’s a long list which is probably why they end up sounding vital and fresh. It was quite short show, I think they went through the whole of the album (but that’s only about half an hour long) and a few others that I wasn’t familiar with and they were done in an hour.
The audience:
A pretty wide age range, there were teenagers there and people older than me… so probably in their 60s – the crowd surfing was exclusively done by the teenagers though! A fairly good mix of male and female as well.
It made me think..
All is not lost and not » Continue Reading.
World Cup Competition
Hi – at my school my form and I are running a competition to raise money for our year charities (Alzheimer’s and Meningitis).
For a quid, you choose four teams – one from each pot. As the tournament progresses each of your teams earns you: 3 pts for a win, 1 for a draw and 1 point for each goal scored (with the exception of penalty shoot-out goals – a shoot out win at the end of a 0-0 draw would earn you 3 pts for the victory, but nothing for the goals).
The top three entrants win vouchers – Amazon, X-box, whatever. If a number of entrants tie for first place three names are drawn from a hat.
Anyone fancy a go?
Pot one: Russia (hosts), Germany, Brazil, Portugal, Argentina, Belgium, Poland, France Pot two: Spain, Peru, Switzerland, England, Colombia, Uruguay, Mexico, Croatia Pot three: Denmark, Iceland, Costa Rica, Sweden, Tunisia, Egypt, Senegal, Iran Pot four: Serbia, Nigeria, Australia, Japan, Morocco, Panama, South Korea, Saudi Arabia
The Blood Road
Author:Stuart MacBride
This new addition to the long running Logan McRae series sees him now working in Professional Standards, but nevertheless being given a murder to investigate. All the usual protagonists are here to a lesser or greater extent, as a detective thought to have committed suicide several years previously turns up dead in a crashed car. Throw in the death by hanging of another police officer and a series of child abductions, and you have MacBrides’s usual winning formula of police procedural combined with his trademark black humour. This novel is something of a return to form after a couple of shakier efforts, with the character of McCrae perhaps benefiting from being given a bit of a rest of late. Whatever the reason, the author is back at the top of his game with this one, even if he does overdo the black humour at times for me. Obviously it helps if you’re familiar with the characters from having read earlier novels in the series, but I think it also works as a standalone work too. Fans will definitely enjoy this one though.
Length of Read:Long
Might appeal to people who enjoyed…
If you enjoy Ian Rankin, Peter James » Continue Reading.
Because I’m Worth It
Danny Kirwan
Danny Kirwan passed away June 8th. He was a member of Fleetwood Mac in the Peter Green years, and in many ways held the band together after Green left. Bare Trees in particular is mainly Danny’s album. He was fired from the band in 1972 due in main to alcohol problems, but also mental instability. After a couple of solo albums he largely disappeared from the music business, and sadly drifted into homelessness and mental illness.
A statement from Mick Fleetwood and John McVie:
“Today was greeted by the sad news of the passing of Danny Kirwan in London, England. Danny was a huge force in our early years. His love for the Blues led him to being asked to join Fleetwood Mac in 1968, where he made his musical home for many years. Danny’s true legacy, in my mind, will forever live on in the music he wrote and played so beautifully as a part of the foundation of Fleetwood Mac, that has now endured for over fifty years. Thank you, Danny Kirwan. You will forever be missed! ~Mick Fleetwood and Fleetwood Mac”
Here’s the quite lovely Woman Of A Thousand Years, from Future Games.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0zGGQLb0Z4
The ungoogleable Quiz
1. A hit song with the word “oars” somewhere in the lyric 2. A hit song with the word “oar” somewhere in the lyric 3. Dreams ain’t eagles – says who? 4. Bing Crosby, Yahoo Serious, Mary Quant. What’s the linkage there then, eh? 5. Whose first song was about a “ruddy” farmyard animal?
Both Directions at Once
51 years after his death, John Coltrane still ain’t done…
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/john-coltrane-lost-1963-recording-202850064.html
is the canon closed? (rhetorical question)
Ok. This will probably only end in tears. I posted tonight on the social media a screenshot of Jeff Buckley’s Grace LP on my turntable with a caption to the effect of “after a 20 year layoff, it is back on with this album”. One comment from a friend (in her forties, as am I) says she loves the LP; another comment, from a former student (I’m a high school teacher; she’s probably now late 20s, early 30s), mock-chiding me for not listening to it for the last 20 years. All in good humour and a shared understanding that it’s a great record. My existential question is this: Is there a (admittedly loose) cutoff point in the future from which someone could post an FB pic about a particular LP and have both peers AND people, say, 20 years younger still claiming it having a lasting resonance for them? Are the doors of the canon closed? Or, have they been closing? Have we been hastily waving (say) the new Radiohead album under the steadily descending door? I do want the answer to be no. But I remember discussion here about Mark Lewisohn’s Beatles biography trilogy and people quite genuinely and » Continue Reading.
Anthony Bourdain
I have just read the news that Anthony Bourdain has committed suicide. I’ve always liked his work – he was witty, insightful and fun which makes his suicide seem the more incongruous and sad.